i enjoyed three body, i liked the oddness of it.
It was indeed odd. it started off like a hardboiled thriller, then became a history textbook, and finished off like flatland or the even weirder lesabendio. but i hated flatland and couldn't finish lesabendio.
for those keen on tracking my reading ambitions
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 16:07 (nine years ago) link
is second imperial radish book worth reading. enjoyed the first but didn't love it
― hot doug stamper (||||||||), Wednesday, 10 June 2015 20:55 (nine years ago) link
Question cosigned.
Thinking about the three body problem, I did enjoy the videogame sections. Although for a fictional game it seemed strangely lacking in any kind of actual gameplay, it did provide some memorable images - e.g. a mediaeval knight on horseback and on fire, galloping in from the horizon shouting "dehydrate! dehydrate!" as an enormous burning sun rises in the sky behind him.
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 22:32 (nine years ago) link
Have just actually properly finished the book - author's and translator's notes... and a brief preview of the second instalment. I couldn't help but be slightly intrigued.
― ledge, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 22:40 (nine years ago) link
what do u guys think of ramez naam?
― flopson, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 22:45 (nine years ago) link
the second radish book is more like a mystery (albeit not a terribly mysterious one) set in said universe
it's okay, but weirdly low-stakes compared to the first and doesn't seem to move the larger plot forward much at all iirc
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 23:26 (nine years ago) link
xp: Kade activates the Bruce Lee program and also fights the ERD soldiers. Wats, watching the entire scene on the roof, also breaks through the ceiling to join the fight. Wats is killed. The ERD detonate explosions in the skulls of the soldiers. Sam and Kade escape.
idk doesn't really sound like my cup of tea.
― ledge, Thursday, 11 June 2015 08:30 (nine years ago) link
yeah that sounds kinda wack. i heard good things about it though, might check it out
― flopson, Thursday, 11 June 2015 16:46 (nine years ago) link
http://www.avclub.com/article/bradley-cooper-adapting-dan-simmons-epic-hyperion--220725
show for syfy
Cooper will be executive producing the series, along with Graham King and his Hangover director Todd Phillips. Itamar Moses (Boardwalk Empire) will write the screenplay.
this seems moderate to high on the wtf scale
― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, 11 June 2015 19:58 (nine years ago) link
talk of Cooper directing a Hyperion movie has been around for a few years
I guess he just really likes it
― Number None, Thursday, 11 June 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link
wow!
― max, Thursday, 11 June 2015 22:12 (nine years ago) link
We don't get syfy in australia, but the impression i get is that it's usually pretty low-rent stuff, right?
― as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Friday, 12 June 2015 00:13 (nine years ago) link
Anyone see that Penguin box set of 100 postcards of old SF cover art? Not sure if this was mentioned already.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 12 June 2015 14:51 (nine years ago) link
no, i hadn't.
a few pictures here. only 4, but that's 3 more than on penguin's sitehttp://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1405920734/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl
― koogs, Friday, 12 June 2015 15:06 (nine years ago) link
ooh!
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 June 2015 16:26 (nine years ago) link
did PKD write the game-players of titan in 24 hours? just a guess. man, i gotta find some of that speed stuff.
― scott seward, Friday, 12 June 2015 19:09 (nine years ago) link
when worlds don't collide---SF fans,LGB(and maybe proto-T?)activists in the 50s:http://www.laassubject.org/index.php/monomania/kepner
― dow, Friday, 12 June 2015 22:15 (nine years ago) link
fascinating
btw:In September 1923, Kepner was found wrapped in newspaper under an oleander bush in Galveston, Texas
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 June 2015 22:55 (nine years ago) link
Since I'd totally forgotten the good ol thread you reposted that on or to, I'll recip as note to self:Science Fiction and Teh Gays
― dow, Friday, 12 June 2015 23:30 (nine years ago) link
Varies tremendously. At one end of the scale you have Battlestar Galactica, at the other Olympus.
They're also producing a series based on Corey's Expanse novels which lands later this year.
― groovypanda, Saturday, 13 June 2015 19:39 (nine years ago) link
The final Apollo Quartet book, All That Outer Space Allows really delivered, successfully tying together the various, um, microworlds, he was investigating in a meaningful way. Thanks to James Morrison for alerting me to its existence.
― Never Mind The Blecchs, Here's The James Redd Orche (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 June 2015 20:25 (nine years ago) link
Will have to check that, haven't come across the AQ books. Haven't read the xpost Expanse series either, but Daniel Abraham, who is 1/2 of James SA Corey, wrote a really good, unusual story I talked about upthread; it's in the Rogues anthology. There's a Corey story in another Dozois & Martin collection I mentioned, Old Mars.
― dow, Sunday, 14 June 2015 01:19 (nine years ago) link
Got pulled into an unexpectedly sustained final reading of God Emperor of Dune. As taught by Children of, I made like a sandworm and tunneled past the GE's manipulative philosophical bullshit, to the part(s) of the Golden Path made of plot twists (incl. turns of POV and character development). Good enough (for this Dune junkie) that way, but I'm worried that dingleberry pearls of wisdumb will be taken at face value in Heretics of Dune, by radical reactionaries vs. the post-GE establishment (though if that happens, I'm sure the author will demonstrate error of their ways, at some length).
― dow, Sunday, 14 June 2015 17:49 (nine years ago) link
By Jove---http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/06/soliloquy-for-pan_13.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29
― dow, Monday, 15 June 2015 04:18 (nine years ago) link
Quite by chance I took At Swim-Two-Birds (don't really know what it was doing on the all time spec fic poll. but there it was) and the free Lafferty omnibus mentioned upthread away for the weekend. Disconcertingly un-disconcerting switching between them - O'Brien prefers to hypnotise you with interminable blarney where Lafferty is happier to wrap things up with the corniest of punchlines, but otherwise they are more than comfortable bedfellows. This from Lafferty I thought particularly Flannish:
The basement room smelled of apples and ink. The editor was there as always, filling the room with his presence. He was a heavy man-image, full of left-handed wisdom and piquant expression. The editor always had time for a like-minded visitor, and George Florin came in as to a room in his own home and sat down in a deep chair in front of the "cracker barrel." "It's been a rough day," Florin said. "That makes it doubly good to see you."
"Except that you do not see me at all," the editor said. "But it is quite a presence that I project -- all the kindly cliches rolled into one. All the prime comments commented so perfectly once again. The man I took for a model was Don Marquis, though he was a columnist and not an editor in that earlier century. He kept, as you might not recall, a typewriting cockroach in his desk drawer. I keep a homunculus, a tiny manthing who comes out at night and dances over the machinery inserting his comments. He is one of our most popular characters, and I give him some good lines."
― ledge, Monday, 15 June 2015 12:48 (nine years ago) link
finished game-players of titan. i didn't like that book at all. so dumb. reading this now:
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/17670_10154003985842137_1963265635912919803_n.jpg?oh=8f3187c8e11301baf927219f5547b735&oe=55EFB74D
― scott seward, Monday, 15 June 2015 15:10 (nine years ago) link
also, saw Tomorrowland with Cyrus yesterday and really enjoyed that. it looked so nice and had such great detail. also, that speech at the end by House M.D. hit pretty close to home. about how people just want to watch end of the world movies and zombie shows instead of trying to make the world better because they have given up and figure there is nothing they can do because we are doomed. he was speeching at ME! oh well.
― scott seward, Monday, 15 June 2015 15:17 (nine years ago) link
Richard Middleton's "The Ghost Ship" was quite fun. A short little whimsical tale of a ghost ship landing on a farm and all the local ghosts go on the ship to get drunk.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 17 June 2015 11:38 (nine years ago) link
Lovecraft's "Dunwich Horror" starts out very well but I found the second half very boring, going through the motions and far longer than it needed to be. I think the intent was to make it similar to a detailed report (as he often does) but there was just too many inessential details and repetitions. All the dialogue with the heavy accents didn't help either. The desciprtions of Wilbur Whateley and the countryside were probably the best things in the story.
So that finishes Great Tales Of Terror & Supernatural (after way too long of not touching it). I think that much like Dark Descent, only one third of the stories are good enough to be in a big doorstopper book like this. The rest are decent, okay or just kinda interesting. One or two I thought were actually pretty bad.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 21 June 2015 16:26 (eight years ago) link
in the middle of "the goblin emperor" and enjoying it a lot. riyl court intrigue
― max, Sunday, 21 June 2015 16:31 (eight years ago) link
reread 'this is the way the world ends'; still good
― mookieproof, Sunday, 21 June 2015 18:47 (eight years ago) link
Ooh that looks cool. Never heard of her (in her own name or her pen name). Thanks!
― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Sunday, 21 June 2015 20:21 (eight years ago) link
Xpost
https://www.blackgate.com/2014/03/25/i-invoke-the-voidal-oblivion-hand-by-adrian-cole/
This Voidal series by Adrian Cole sounds nutty and right up my street.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 21 June 2015 22:44 (eight years ago) link
The cover art of Baen books are really perplexing. There's always been bad fantasy cover art but why do their books so often look like bad fantasy cover art from over 25 years ago?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 25 June 2015 18:41 (eight years ago) link
tradition!
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 25 June 2015 18:42 (eight years ago) link
I keep looking and thinking "Does the audience really love this? Do the artists who paint this stuff even like their work that much?"
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 25 June 2015 18:46 (eight years ago) link
Intriguing description of a timeslip indeed:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kg0sA_ByZC8/VYU_gZlPAiI/AAAAAAAAAiM/PYmjTGfAwF8/s320/img097.jpg
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/06/fanfaronade-ivo-pakenham.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29
― dow, Friday, 26 June 2015 01:22 (eight years ago) link
And xpost speaking of art
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zi2VJY0L79k/VYp86qOd3UI/AAAAAAAAAjE/pI-1HjC0EMU/s1600/Tessa%2BFarmer.jpg
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/06/in-fairy-land-tessa-farmer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29
― dow, Friday, 26 June 2015 01:25 (eight years ago) link
Never in the history of art
― The Clones of Baron Funkhausen by Proxy Syndrome (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 26 June 2015 01:37 (eight years ago) link
i'm enjoying Wayward Pines. 10-part series starring Matt Dillon. and based on a trilogy of books i'd never heard of. if you haven't seen it, don't read about it. sci-fi spoilers abound.
― scott seward, Friday, 26 June 2015 14:06 (eight years ago) link
so that's not just some terrible Shamalayan Twin Peaks rip?
― Οὖτις, Friday, 26 June 2015 15:35 (eight years ago) link
no, see, that's what makes it good. it's based on books that he didn't write. and it definitely belongs on a sci-fi thread. but i won't spoil.
― scott seward, Friday, 26 June 2015 15:48 (eight years ago) link
Dillon makes me favorably disposed to it but the Shamster, I just can't get with him
― Οὖτις, Friday, 26 June 2015 18:05 (eight years ago) link
yeah, but really you gotta just pretend that he isn't part of it. cuz it's entertaining. he's a producer of it and he directed one or two episodes.
― scott seward, Friday, 26 June 2015 18:15 (eight years ago) link
actually i think he just directed the pilot. the guy who brought it to t.v. though is just some guy i've never heard of. made two t.v. shows previously: runaway & the playboy club. neither of which i have seen.
― scott seward, Friday, 26 June 2015 18:17 (eight years ago) link
Cinderellas, the Rocket Post, other stamps beyond my ken---looks like I gave up philately way too soon:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8aoBByTWlHc/VY1O1aDcNAI/AAAAAAAAAjU/zeRoHnDQ5vQ/s1600/img100.jpg
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/06/alice-through-pillar-box-gerald-m-king.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29
― dow, Friday, 26 June 2015 21:30 (eight years ago) link
Just watched The Happening on the syfy channel. Rather unsatisfying.
― Help Me, Zond 4 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 June 2015 18:58 (eight years ago) link
Intriguing review of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves and Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, with cogent, concise comments on their relationship to the present era:http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/the-warm-equations
― dow, Sunday, 28 June 2015 19:31 (eight years ago) link
Only thing: the reviewer limits himself *so much* by abstention from all spoilers. But he says why.
― dow, Sunday, 28 June 2015 19:38 (eight years ago) link